


A La Seconde

by AndreaLyn



Category: Center Stage (2000)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-20
Updated: 2011-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-15 19:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maureen can't help but wonder if she's as bad as her mother for making her girls dance. It's not the life for her, but other people suit it perfectly as her visit to the ABA proves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A La Seconde

The program for the recital has been hiding Maureen Gordon’s face for approximately two minutes now, though it’s okay, she thinks, because her girls are not on stage and thes music is bringing back painful memories. “This is torture,” she whispers at Jim with a hiss, earning a ‘shhh!’ or two from around her.

She’s going mad all to the tune of the Sugar Plum Fairy as memories of her youth visit her and her toes feel swollen and bruised just thinking about it. This isn’t about her, though, and she clasps tightly at Jim’s hand in eager anticipation as their girls appear onstage and go through the movements and the simplistic _pliés_ and _jétés_ they each do. By the time the ensemble completes their pirouettes, Maureen has exhaled her tension and the motherly worry that seems her constant companion fades slightly when she takes a moment to just watch the four-year-old girls use the grace that genetics have imbued each of them with.

If she really thinks about it, this has run in the family so long that the twins would have to have taken after Jim and his severe two-left-feet if they were to avoid it (he’d been able to muster up a waltz and a foxtrot for the wedding, but Maureen had turned a blind eye to the fact they had only repeated the same two dances all evening until the early hours of the morning swallowed the reception).

They’re out in the hall when Maureen lets out her first cry of excitement as Jane and Natalie come bounding down the halls of the ABA and nearly leap into Maureen’s waiting arms. Their pink tutus are still fluttering about and Jim is standing behind with their possessions, grinning warmly.

“You were _amazing_!” Maureen praises with genuine joy on her face.

“Mommy!” Jane gleefully remarks. “Mommy, we met someone who says she knows you! She was watching us perform, she said she was gonna come say hello!”

Maureen glances over her shoulder up at Jim with wariness, shifting Natalie in her arms as she lifts her up, letting Jim do the same with Jane (with a grunt and an ‘up you go!’). While Maureen is trying to communicate with Jim without using a single word, the girls are chattering away to one another about the performance.

Maureen had been wary the day the girls had come to her announcing they wanted to dance. At first, she thought it was in the genes – this _curse_ of something you thought you wanted to do because of the grace it imbues your limbs with and the attention it draws to you. She’d said no immediately to the girls’ despair and it took Jim coming home that evening to set her straight.

 _“Maureen.”_

 _“They’re not doing it. I am not putting them through what I did!”_

 _“Maureen,” Jim had spoken gently, resting both hands on her shoulders, sounding tired and looking it when she’d turned to look at him properly. “How is this any better than your mother forcing you to do something you weren’t sure about? Just because you think you’re acting in their best interests…well, maybe they really and genuinely want to dance. And you’ll let them make their own decisions as they grow up. Except about boys. They’re never allowed to date.”_

 _Maureen had managed a faint smile at that. “I’m not being a horrible mother just because I want to protect them?”_

 _“You’re being a great mother,” Jim had assured her. “But let them sign up for dance. The alternative is hockey, Maureen. Hockey. And I think I speak for all of us when I say that’s not going to end well.”_

So she’s put aside her qualms about all of this. She’s even managed to stand in the halls of the ABA without keeling over or having a panic attack or _screaming_ at the top of her lungs.

“I don’t even believe it.”

The five words come with a hesitation in the middle, like a dip in the weight of the sentence, containing a word that should belong, but doesn’t. When Maureen glances up, she understands exactly why that it is. “Oh my god, Eva,” Maureen exhales, eternally grateful that Eva’s restrained herself from inserting that trademark little ‘fucking’ between her words, nestled in nicely as though it constantly belongs.

Eva’s changed. Then, Maureen knows that she has as well. Even before the girls, she’d slowly been putting on weight until she was still svelte, but no longer worrying Jim that she might collapse from a lack of calories on any given day. Maureen also likes to think that she’s happier now, that she appears more relaxed and doesn’t stand up as though a platinum pole is rammed up her spine. That she doesn’t look like she’ll snap at any moment. Her hair’s loose and in waves and Natalie is busy playing with it while Jane whispers secrets to Jim.

Eva looks…well, she looks like the star she is. She’s standing tall and proud and looks as graceful as a lead of Jonathan’s ballet company can be. For a flash of a moment, Maureen wonders if she would look the same or if she would even be _alive_ six years down the road.

“I didn’t realize who the girls were until they started talking about impressing Mommy,” Eva teases, tweaking Jane’s nose slightly. “Thought I recognized the name, though. You two in the audience just closed the case. Jesus,” she marvels, stepping back and staring at them. “Look at you and this family portrait.” Her gaze falls from the big picture and lands on Maureen and for a moment, it feels as if the room has shrunk to just the two of them. “ _You._ You look amazing, Maureen,” she says and for all their tense moments in the past, this is genuine as ever. “You look _happy_.”

“I am,” Maureen promises and lets out a laugh when she knows that she means it utterly and wholly. “I really am. How is everyone! How’s Jody and Charlie and oh my god, it’s been so long,” she admits with an embarrassed laugh, ashamed at not keeping up with them. Of course, now that she’s writing her column on theatre for the paper and Jim’s teaching interns and the girls seem to be growing by the day, Maureen sometimes wonders that there’s even a world outside of the four walls of their home.

“They’re with Sergei out West for a show,” Eva recalls, fingers fluttering by her lips as she studies the girls with sheer joy. “On and off. They tend to work around the production schedules and whenever Charlie feels he has to go prove his manliness in front of Cooper,” she jokes. “God, I haven’t seen the two of you since the wedding.”

“I still have two left feet,” Jim promises.

“You a big fancy doctor?”

“I made it through. I’m pretty sure I’m now dangerously addicted to caffeine, but I’m through.”

“Daddy’s a smart doctor,” Natalie confirms with a swift nod of her head, holding on to Maureen’s neck tightly. It still has ever swan-like quality it ever did, but lately she shows it off with the jewelry Jim buys her on their vacations or artwork brought home from school.

It’s a different life. She’s not a star, but Odette never did have the joys of Maureen’s girls. She wouldn’t trade an instant of it. “What about you, Eva, any men?” Maureen asks before the topic can get a little too mature for present company (which Maureen can see coming in the way that Eva is trying to check out Jim’s behind and her mouth is open as if to let a comment about it loose).

She brushes it off with a breezy laugh and slings her arm around Maureen’s waist. “Do I need any men in my life? Jonathan’s _enough_ ,” she says firmly with a pointed flick in her tone. “Great choreography, but he’s on this midlife crisis _kick_ of his. He’s trying to reinvent everything. Kathleen’s just enabling him at this point. She’s choreographing now too.”

“It sounds exciting,” Maureen praises.

Eva falters at that, as if suddenly she’s feeling sympathy for talking so happily about her life, this life that Maureen will only ever glimpse through the looking glass on. “It is,” she admits, taken away from all her complaints and criticism. “It really is. I love it. Jody’s happy with the stuff Cooper’s doing. She says as much every time I talk to her on the phone and Charlie…well, when they’re on, he’s happy too.”

Maureen gently eases Natalie into Jim’s arms so he’s got one twin on each arm and then there’s nothing in the world stopping Maureen from wrapping her arms tightly around Eva’s neck and holding on so close.

“I know I made the right choice,” Maureen near-mumbles the words. “But it’s still so good to see you. _So_ good.”

“You’re not half as much of a bitch as you used to be,” Eva praises now that they’re out of earshot from the kids. They ease back and Eva clasps Maureen by the shoulders to give her a good look. “It’s a good look for you.”

“You should come to our place,” Maureen says excitedly. “Jim’s doing this cooking thing where he samples a new country every week and we’re heading into Moroccan cooking next.”

“Is he any good?”

Maureen bursts out with a nervous laugh. “Passable,” she admits with a mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ back at Jim. “But he gets really cutely flustered when things start boiling over at once.” It’s genuine love in her eyes as she watches her family and the easy way that Jim has with the girls and she knows that she herself has practiced it that she’s as adept as she once was in ballet shoes.

It’s a different grace she dances with now. She waltzes from work to her family and to her husband’s bed wherein he still puts her flexibility to good use (to Maureen’s great horrific embarrassment and delight) and she never loses sight of her goals. She loves her life. She actually loves it and she’s stopped hoping a piano will fall on her feet just so she won’t have to dance. That’s got to be for the best.

“You will call me with directions to your place and details,” Eva is saying as she grabs a pen and writes her number down on Maureen’s hand. “And I’ll drag Jody and Anna and Charlie and whoever’s around! It’ll be a reunion and they can all fawn over your gorgeous girls. They danced really well, Maureen. Really,” Eva enthused, finally relinquishing Maureen’s palm.

Maureen flinches at that, as if it’s some accusatory remark against her. “I’ll be behind them no matter what they want to do,” she insists, because as much as she loves her mother, she doesn’t want to _become_ her.

Eva smiles as if she’s suddenly discovered a secret and leans in to hug Maureen tightly before doing the same with each girl and then Jim. “You’re good for her. Where’d you hide that steel rod anyway?”

“Dumped it in the Hudson,” Jim replies easily. “And I’m sleeping on the couch for that tonight, but it was worth it.” He leans in to kiss Maureen’s cheek.

“Go!” Maureen insists cheerfully. “Be a star, Eva Rodriguez. We’ll see you later.”

“Bye Miss Eva!” Natalie and Jane bid her adieu in tandem, all smiles and giggles and excitement at meeting their first true dance celebrity (though Jim always has made a big deal of insisting to the girls that their own mother is the best he’s ever seen). They’re genuinely excited and their smiles haven’t faltered since their performance.

They’re every inch the happiest little girls Maureen’s ever seen and it makes her feel as if she’s made the right decision. No one’s doomed to any kind of life. No one’s tethered to decisions. No one’s going to be in a prison with beautiful music that matches the epically choreographed dreams.

Maureen takes hold of Natalie tightly in her arms and presses a loving kiss to her temple, holding her as close as possible.

“I love you girls, you know that?” she softly whispers to them both. “And you were the best out there, the very best. I’m so proud of you,” she insists, looking up through bleary eyes to catch sight of Jim’s eyes on her. She mouths the only three words that matter to him and she can’t stop smiling.

It’s better than before.

In fact, if anyone watches them as they depart, they might just see something of a small hop in Maureen’s step, a graceful brush of the floor with her toes. She still loves to dance, but she fits it into a life that matters far more. She won’t trade it for the world, no matter how many stages she could have headlined. The only one that matters is their home.

THE END


End file.
